Papers
The Performance of Digital Play
published online Forum Special Issue: Play, 2007
Modern digital games are a highly successful commercial form of entertainment, however it is only relatively recently that they have started to be taken seriously as a modern art form. A central aspect of game form is the active role held by the player, whose actions and behaviour create the gaming experience. The argument presented in this paper is that the playing of videogames is a performance act and that our understanding of this precocious dramatic form is enhanced by applying the lens offered by performance theory to more closely understand the dynamics that thrive in the dance between player and game.
This paper offers a position statement that outlines some starting points for exploring the unique aspects of digital game performance.
Bringing the Body back into Play
Westecott, E. (2008) ‘Putting the Body back into Play’. the [player] conference Proceedings.
This paper is interested in the physical leakage that takes place in front of the screen during gameplay, in how our bodies escape from the fixed focus of the game. This paper presents anecdotal experiences of play observations in order to look at some physical responses to the phenomena of digital gameplay. The intention of the work is to argue that our physical bodies are actively involved in the game act. My argument treads a path around a range of theoretical concerns that explore notions of the body as relates to a gameplay experience. This paper is not about in-game bodies but the effects the gameplay moment has on our physical bodies. In focusing on our physical inclination for movement a core area of interest in this work is experiential modality – tactility, proprioception and internal kinesthesia – all senses proper to the body. By focusing this argument on the visceral experience of gameplay rather than looking to the aesthetic of a particular game style I hope to offer an introductory look at the ways in which games confuse and delight our flesh.
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I HEART LocoRoco - a reading of a gameplay experience
published online Eludamos. Journal for Computer Game Culture. 2009; 3 (1), p. 85-93
In the diverse landscape of modern gaming it is rare to find specific games that are universally described in affectionate terms. Allegiances to form and genre identify the various tribes and often the divide between gaming sub-cultures runs deep. Passionate players pride themselves both by the longevity of their status and via signifiers of skill acquired. These traits typify what has become known as the "hardcore" player; in popular gaming culture the hardcore is often positioned contra the "casual" player with hours and type of game played as the main criteria for qualification. However these terms are ludicrous at best and fall short in describing the multitude of people who play digital games. The following is focussed on one particular Sony PSP game franchise that has received widespread critical acclaim, LocoRoco. This is a 2D platform game initially released in Europe in Summer 2006 and although it has not gone platinum[1] this title got to No 5 in the UK Charts and has won 2 BAFTA's for character design and children's game in 2006. LocoRoco 2 was released in the U.K. in November 2008. Sony's Tsutomu Kouno, the Director of LocoRoco, has stated that one of his design intentions was to make a game that appealed to those who didn't normally play games (Kouno, 2006). This statement is key in my selection of this game. As a hugely lucrative yet nascent industry, it is of interest to study the ways in which commercial developers attempt to attract new players to part with their hard-earnt entertainment dollar. My investigation looks to explicate game design decisions that entice a player into dialogue with the ongoing game experience. I will look at issues including pleasure and seduction within the action and reward cycle inherent to gameplay.
The Player Character as Performing Object
published as part of DiGRA 2009 Proceedings
Engagement in games is manifest through a player’s representation of action in game. The main mechanism for this engagement is through direct control of a player character. This control mechanism can be seen as a form of puppetry in which the player manipulates a game figure ranging from the abstract to the super-human. Through a focus on the player character, this paper posits that it may be productive to conceive of the player focus as one akin to that of the puppet artist, or puppeteer, and discusses one approach to unpacking the abstract sign systems of game-play in this setting.
The player character acts out the movements of the player and marks her progression in game. A doubling happens in this action, between the physical movements on the controller and the representation of agency on screen. As a player I act, then watch the results of my action on screen, always already audience to my own play practice. One ongoing challenge for games studies is the framing of the relationship between the player and her player character. From a phenomenological perspective this has been conceived of as an instrumental extension into the game world [1, 2]. Using the ‘binocular lens’ [3] of performance analysis semiotic work is necessary to balance our sense of the improvisational act of digital game-play. The player binds to the lived experience of game-play through engagement with the sign systems at play in a specific gaming experience.
Puppetry has existed across world cultures since records began, as entertainment, ritual and celebration, and broadly involves the animation of inanimate performing objects. The insertion of objects between the performer and the audience allows for different, and deeper, levels of signification than live actors alone can offer. Puppets consist a developed form of performing object, one that moves. The fascination with puppets reaches far back into history, revealing our yearning to play god, to exert domination over our human experience. Similarly, the seductive illusion of control plays a central part in the appeal inherent in digital game form. In the modern setting much work on puppetry remains relatively hidden across a broad spectrum of fields, from computer science to anthropology. However performance theorists such as Tillis [4] introduce a broad semiotics to conceive of the multitude of ways we engage with puppetry. Other theorists have engaged in embracing digital and mediated puppet form, not least in games studies in areas such as machinima and alternate-reality gaming, yet attention has been slow in broadening the application of puppet theory to player characters. Tillis [4] offers a focus on signs of design, movement and speech as core to building an aesthetics of the puppet. For the player character signifiers of affect and control require addition to any such tentative schema. This paper argues that the metaphor of the puppet offers a useful frame for the central figure of our game-play focus by allowing for a kind of ‘double-vision’ [4] that enables a player character to be seen in two ways at once, ‘as a perceived object and as an imagined life’ [4].
Using the tools of performance analysis this paper addresses the liminal relationship between player and player character in the flux of play. The intention is to offer an explication of the range of methods, whether stylistic, instrumental or kinesthetic, deployed in this relationship to engage the player in the instrumental act of play.
REFERENCES
1. Klevjer, R. What is the Avatar? Fiction and Embodiment in Avatar-Based Singleplayer Computer Games. PhD dissertation. Bergen, University of Bergen. Available at: http://folk.uib.no/smkrk/. 2007.
2. Sommerseth, H. ““Gamic Realism”: Player, Perception and Action in Video Game Play”. In DIGRA Digital Library. Available at: http://www.digra.org/dl/display_html?chid=http://www.digra.org/dl/db/0
3. States, B. O. Great reckonings in little rooms: on the phenomenology of theater. University of California Press: Berkeley. 1987.
4. Tillis, S. Towards an Aesthetics of The Puppet. Greenwood Press: Westport. 1992.
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